The Snake And The Mongoose
by AsianRain
Summary: Gaara has never met his match and never had a closer friend than Naruto. But who is this girl that comes in and out of his life ? Will she be his enemy, his rival or his friend ? What will this girl bring into his life, what will he bring into hers ?
1. The Mongoose

**This is a story has some themes that touch areas of race, social class, gender roles, sexuality, and culture, I know these type of elements are foreign to the original story of Naruto. So if any of the elements in my story offend anyone I apologize in advance. **

**All characters from the original story are of owner ship of Masashi Kishimoto and publishing company Shounen Jump© **

**Other characters written in are of my creation. Hope you enjoy, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome. {This is a prologue of the story of when Gaara was 5 years old}**

* * *

><p><em><strong>~ Prologue; Little Gaara sat on his swing, as usual. The unforgiving morning desert heat pressed against his skin, and the grains of sand scraping him through the wind, as usual. He had grown tired of sitting distant in his lonesome perch as he watch the other children play in the distance. Knowing the fact that he could never talk to them or play with them made him feel like an animal in a cage, he didn't feel human. <strong>_

**_He watched his feet skim on the dirty, thick sand. Mindlessly reeling the button eye of his teddy bear. Wishing he hadn't been so different, as usual. _**

_**There was a sudden loud crunch behind him that made him jump a little. He turned around and saw a thin vine of sand releasing a dirty plastic ball. 'Not again' he thought, afraid to see the reaction of the child when they see he has their ball. He cradled the rough ball in his arms. **_

**_He heard shouting carry out from the distance, in words he found very unfamiliar. A child yelled out, "Maim ise mileaga !" _**

**_He saw a small dark girl run from the shadows of the buildings into the light of the sun that reached across the village, puffs of dust and flicked behind her feet as she ran. The girl took to halt and stood before Gaara, with light clouds of dust lingering behind her and sticking to her knees, legs and bare feet like flour. To his surprise no fear or anger shown on her face as her eyes set upon him. Seeing how at peace the girl was in his presence made something in him bur a little, like a lighter or a candle, but not like the way anger or fear burns. She was so secure in how she carried her self around him, the 'monster' of the village. Something that one wouldn't normally see a little girl carry in her stride. _**

**_She continued to fixate her gaze on him, studying him as she stepped closer. His heart picked up a new pace, like a moth drumming its wings against a light bulb. He didn't know whether she'd run away or what his sand will do if she moved too quickly._**

_**He held out the ball to her carefully, hoping she wouldn't run away. She stepped closer and gently took the ball from him. Her big brown doe eyes smiled as she grinned sweetly. "Sukryia!" she chirped with spring in her step. **_

**_Gaara's mind twirled in knots, he didn't understand what she said, he didn't know how to respond, but the way she looked at him and the way she said it left him dumbfounded and embarrassed. The little brown girl shook the dust out of her thick short hair, hair that was brilliantly black, like soot. Shaking her shorts and wrinkled coca-cola shirt, stained with dirt and possibly ink. _**

"**_Alavida" she said softly giving him that warm gentle smile, she walked back with stride until she slid into that sheet of darkness of the corner of the building. She stopped and looked back at Gaara, staring at him with those big dark eyes, and waved at him with a slow, shy hand. He raised his hand and echoed the gesture back weakly. Voices of the other children behind the building called out to her to hurry up and with that call she vanished behind the shadows as swift as a jeroba mouse._**

**_Gaara held his hands behind his back, lacing his fingers together. The image of that girl sunk deeper into his head. Her dark skin and hair and eyes, he never seen a girl with dark skin before, something about it caught his attention and fascinated him. Reminded him of something warm. No one had been so kind to him like that besides his uncle. Why was she so kind to him, how could she be ? he thought. The question began to hammer into his head. He assured himself he would never see that girl again, but he made sure he would hold that memory of her in his heart. _**

_**A certain happiness began to unfold like a rose within him, knowing that someone was so nice to him. **_

_**The whole day he thought. "What is her name?"**_

* * *

><p><strong>The language the girl was speaking was Hindi. More information will be shown in Chapter 2. Alavida means "Bye" and Sukriya means "Thank you". Please review :o) <strong>


	2. The Snake

_Chapter 2. I'm fired up today! :)__ Now in this chapter the anonymous character from the previous chapter will have her story, her nationality, and her identity filled in. And it will center her perspective in this chapter. From the prologue it started out from when her and Gaara were very young, and the stories time line will weave up into the present; where the original series is at now. In this chapter the two characters are 12 years old and it's after the invasion of Konoha. Enjoy :)_

* * *

><p>- It was hotter than hell itself at noon in the sand village. Aditi hated doing outdoor work at this time of day. Her loose strands of hair that fell out of her bun would stick to the sweat on her face. <em>'Father, works with the Kazekage, why do we still have to live in this stupid apartment?' <em>she thought. Her father is a good worker; he was one of the Kazekage's top men to make the most prestigious weapons. Even though the village leader was dead, her father still was paid handsomely. He chose not buy new school supplies for Aditi, or proper clothes or stuff they could use around the house, such as good priced store brand dish soap.

Instead he would use his money for expensive shinobi weapons for older brother, Lalit, and for his regular school loans. Or he would just treat himself to expensive Japanese liquor with the company of pretty young Indian and Japanese women.

Here in the sand village of such a country was a hard life to live, as it was when she was in India. But it was no easier here. But she was grateful that her father made money and had a good job and that her brother brought honor to the family as being one of the first young Indian shinobi with school scholarships at that at his age.

Aditi seated herself on the grainy concrete porch; let her thick waist length hair fall freely from her messy bun. She could hear the young ninjas practice from afar. The sounds of punching, metal clashing and battle cries rang in her ears like bells. If only she could be a ninja, she thought. The thought of to bring honor to her village and her family made her heart swell as it drummed steadily. To be recognized as the first Indian kunoichi, or even the best kunoichi in the village would bring such pride to her family. But, the fact that her father won't let her even think about doing man's job dampened the possibilities and hopes for such a dream to develop into a goal. Yet, her father's limits didn't stop her from being a strong girl. There isn't enough money in the world that would make her be a docile and submissive housewife. She has never and will never deny that she has the stubbornness and strength of a bull inside her. Is something not even the Kazekage could strip of her for it was God who put strength in her for a reason.

And she will somehow or someway use that strength for someone someday.

And she _will_ make someone proud.

* * *

><p>- The brightness of noon shed its bright colors to a dark star stained sky, with the brilliant moon hanging above the village with beams that illuminated the planes of the desert and the rows of the buildings in the village into silhouettes. "<strong>Aditi!<strong>" The bellowing scream in the ambsace of the house wrenched her from her reverie. Her brother and her father made their way towards the house.

Lakshman, her father, was a fairly tall and slim middle-aged man who still had a full head of hair and was heavily bearded. By the way he walked, his arthritis was more noticeable and his eyes looked tired and red. Lalit stood beside him, a fairly tall and lean 13-year-old boy who stood a good foot beneath his father but to Aditi, he was very tall.

She pulled aside the sheet hanging from the doorway as the two musty and tired men walked through, arm and arm. Her father plopped himself down on the heap of cushions on the floor. Lalit peeled off his dirt stained sweaty shirt and tossed it roughly to Aditi's little head. He walked around shirtless, shamelessly as he went to the kitchen and dunked his head into the sink with the water running strongly and loudly.

"Aditi, what are you cooking for dinner tonight?" her father asked. "Father, we only have carrots and old rice" she replied looking down at her feet. "Than why don't you go out and get something, then?" "Huh?" Lalit called out from the kitchen, looking at her with that smug grin on his face. His remark made heat flush in her cheeks, she wanted to just smack the taste out of his pompous, smart-ass mouth.

" Why didn't you tell me that ahead of time?" her father asked. "I did" " No, you didn't, you are responsible for keeping your family fed. When I come home I expect a meal on the table. Saying that there isn't any food isn't a good enough excuse, if there isn't any food, you go out and bring it home. I keep a roof over your head and make sure you have a place to sleep. I expect you to keep me fed and my house clean, do you understand? If this had happened when company came over you would be punished. So consider yourself lucky for tonight."

She looked into her father's black eyes. Those words pricked her like barbed wire, she sucked her lips in, just looking at him made her almost want to spit in his face.

But looked down to fight down that horrible thought. "I'm sorry, father, it won't happen again." she said, straining to speak as politely as before. Her father jerked out her hand and slapped an ample amount of crumpled up money in the palm of her hand and tucked her fingers around it tightly. "Go to the main part of the village and go the Japanese grocery store at the market forum. That's the only grocery place that's open at the time of night. Don't talk to **anyone** besides the cashier, you're not allowed to speak to anyone that doesn't ask you to speak. Now hurry." She made her way towards the row of shoes next to he doorway. Lalit smacked the back of her head lightly as she bent down to slip on her shoes. Leaving the house she heard Lalit call " Get me some of those Japanese ice creams that look like dumplings!"

* * *

><p>- Walking in the unfamiliar part of the village alone. The only things in her company were the humming of cicadas and the blinking of neon lights. She felt like an alien in this part of the village. She couldn't understand any of the bright signs over the stores. All they were to her were bright bubbly scribbles. She understood that it was Hiragana but she didn't understand how it was supposed to be read. The odor of fish hit her in the face and jerked and pulled anything on her that could cover her nose, but she then just used her long hair to mask her poor nostrils from the smell. She was told not to talk to anyone, so she couldn't ask anyone where the grocery store was. She fished in the pocket of her shirt, her breath hitched, as she didn't feel the money. It fell out of her pocket. She tried not to panic at the thought. She kicked up the sand in frustration "Damn it! No!" she hissed through her teeth. Releasing a deep distressed sigh that she locked up in her chest.<p>

Aditi was now deep in the north side of the village at night with no money to buy food or the right to ask questions from people, she felt like a baby in the woods. At this point, the poor girl would rather stay lost than to go back to her rat hole of a home. She walked deeper into this town, seeing hung up laundry, graffiti, and suburban neighbor hoods and apartment complexes. She noticed the moon look so much bigger from where she stood.

The sound of footsteps crunching in the sand caught her attention, a boy pulled something out of the sand, a necklace she assumed. The boy was very pale and had dark rusty rose red hair, and a strange features along with a fresh scab in the center of his forehead, on top of that he had some kind of a guard buckled to his back which made it harder for her not to look. She stayed hidden in the shadow of a building while this boy basked in the massive beams of the moon that made his pale skin almost glow. Aditi assayed him, the thick kohl like rings that rimmed the shapes of his eyes look painfully familiar. A woman had bumped into him clumsily, and stopped. Fear or anger of some kind contorted her facial features. "What the fuck do you want, you son of a bitch!" she screeched as she distanced her self while the boy just stood there, still and with a heavy, vacant expression on his face. The woman's words sent a shock of heat through Aditit's nerves, how dare she speak to that boy that way.

The woman breathed loudly and hard with that sweaty mean scowl on her face. Which brought Aditi's anger to a simmer. The boy looked like he tried to tell her something but the viper of a woman cut him off. "Why are you here ? Did you come to eat babies, huh? Did you come to rape someone you little heathen!" The lady's words sent Aditi nearly insane with fury; she wouldn't stand for this, "Hey ! **Hey! **Who the hell do you think you are? Leave him alone you crazy bitch!" she brazenly stormed out of the shadows to the now perplexed woman. "Go to hell!" she continued, seeing red, she impulsively picked up an empty liquor bottle lying at her feet and threw it at the woman's head. The woman fell to the ground out cold. Aditi looked at what she done. It all was so fast, she didn't mean to hurt the woman so badly. Suddenly she felt sand creep up her calves, she turned to the boy. Whose eyes were scared and still. Who was this monster that sick woman spoke of, there is no monster for as far as she could see. She saw the most inhuman jade eyes she had ever seen look upon her.

She was oblivious to the sand that now locked around her legs gently. She fought he sand off her legs like shaking paper off as she inched closer to him. "Are you okay?" she asked, timidly. He didn't answer, he just stared at her as if he just saw a dog walk on its hind legs and talked. "Don't listen to that-that sick lady, you're not a monster. I hope she didn't hurt you or I hope I didn't scare you." She said. Again, earned nothing in response but a stare. She turned around and walked away, "thank you…", those words stopped her foot from touching the ground. She turned her head to respond, but he had vanished.

"_What is his name?" _she thought. She thinks of a little pale boy who gave her the ball she lost, that sheepish and lonely boy…

She felt a strong hand hit the back of her head and she fell to the ground, drowning in blackness. She felt nothing, heard nothing and saw nothing. But sill heard the thought…_"what is his name?"echoed in her mind all night._

* * *

><p><em>I hope this chapter doesn't slide through too fast. The pronunciation of these character's names were <em>**Aditi {Ah-dee-tee}, Lalit {Lah-leet}, Lakshman {Laak-shman}.**

_Now I know that some elements in this chapter might be a little cliché, I tried to give Aditi as much as a four-dimensional personality as I could. I hope that she is likeable in some way. If you have read this chapter, tell me you think of little Aditi if you can. Thank you :)_


End file.
